


Nerevarini Velvyn, Ashen Blade

by blazingsnark



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls: Blades
Genre: Origin Story, everything starts out find and then it's somehow all downhill from there, the thalmor are dicks but we knew that already
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-05
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2020-04-08 10:03:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19104898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blazingsnark/pseuds/blazingsnark
Summary: Sotha Sarethi is many things - a Dunmer shunned by Morrowind, a Blade spymaster, a skilled warrior, and a decent flute player if you catch her in the right mood.She's also the daughter of the immortal Nerevarine.The Thalmor are really only interested in that last part.





	Nerevarini Velvyn, Ashen Blade

As the grand Dwemer door opens, cold air drafts into the room.  The fire sputters. The gathered Blades shiver, their discussion pausing as twelve pairs of eyes turn to the latecomers.

“Apologies,” says Sotha.  One of her five shoves the heavy door shut.  She shrugs the thick black cloak from her shoulders to reveal the black armor of a Blade spymaster.  “Trolls on the road.”

The other Blades nod.  Sotha and her five spend only a few more moments by the door to shrug off cloaks, stomp snow from their boots, and lift helmets from their heads before coming to sit at the long table.  Sotha carefully flicks frost from the wolf-carved hilt of the Blade katana at her side. Celyn can’t find a seat, and has to perch on Miralnu’s lap. The only chair left empty is the throne-like one at the head of the table.

It has been left empty for a very long time.

One of the other Blades, a young Breton in trainee’s grays, now unrolls a map.  He stakes it to the center of the table and withdraws back to his mentor’s side.  Sotha’s golden eyes follow him.

The natural quiet of his steps… She’ll have to speak to his mentor, later, and ask if he’d be willing to give his trainee up to the path of a spy.  They’ve lost too many good agents in these past few years. But, for now, she turns her attention to the map and the rest of the Blades.

“We just came up from the Imperial City,” she explains, elbows on the table.  “Miralnu, would you like to elaborate?”

Miralnu clears her throat.  Celyn, on her lap, tries to lean out of the way, but only ends up looking kind of ridiculous.  Sotha has to steel herself not to laugh.

“Um,” she says.  “The Dominion has relented. They’ve allowed the treaty to be signed without certain key clauses.  The Blades are still legal entities of the Empire.”

Soft breaths of relief whisper from all around the table.  Tension bleeds from the room. Sotha lets that news simmer and sink in for a few moments.

But they didn’t come here only to alleviate fears.

“Wax?”  She holds a hand out to Claudia, the youngest and only human of her five.  Claudia tosses her the blobs of colored wax out of her pack. Sotha catches them, nods, and stands up with a scrape of stone on stone to hover over the map.

“So, since the White-Gold Concordat has just been signed,” she says.  She kneads the blue wax in her hand to soften it. “One of the terms _not_ changed is the one calling for all statues of Talos to be struck down and all his worshippers killed or forced to recant.”

The wax is soft enough.  Sotha lights a flame at the end of her gray finger and drips six careful blots onto specific places on the map.

“Here’s the most popular spots Talos worshippers have fled to,” she says.  “The news about that clause just… _leaked_ out somehow.”

One of the other Blades snorts.  “Can’t imagine how that happened.”

“It’s a mystery,” says Claudia serenely.  Sotha, out of the corner of her eye, catches Andalmo and Bira Gra’Mazdek sharing a fistbump beneath the table.  They were the two of her five who, mysteriously enough, disappeared for several weeks just before Talos worshippers began fleeing cities across the Empire.

“Whatever the reason, it’ll be causing problems for our new allies.”  Sotha taps one of the blue wax circles. “It will certainly irk them if they can’t find any worshippers to hunt.  So, as per the Condordat’s terms, let’s pay a few visits to these camps.”

The gathered Blades eye her.  Sotha smiles pleasantly. They’re smart men and women, to be in this meeting.  They can figure out what she means.

A log in the fire pops and sends sparks showering onto the stone hearth.  The second trainee’s face lights up, a few beats behind the other Blades.

“You mean we should-!”

Bira Gra’Mazdek makes a rumbling warning low in her throat.

“I’m not saying you _should_ do anything,” says Sotha with an immediate sharpness.  “Certainly I wouldn’t order you to commit treason under our new governance.  I’m just a spymaster. I provide information, and you may make your own decisions with that knowledge.”

It’s a legal distinction, that between Blade agent and Blade spymaster, but an important distinction all the same.  Imperial law dictates different protections and rights for those who fight in shadow versus those who only walk in it.  Sotha hopes to never need them. That won’t stop her from making sure she can shelter beneath the letter of the law, if worst comes to it.

The trainee’s mentor seems to be explaining exactly this, softly, in simplified terms.  Sotha watches her lips move for a few moments before turning her attention back to the map.

“So,” she says, reaching for green wax.  “For those of you who choose not to deal with all that, we’ve got a few situations on the border with-”

The door slams open.  Cold air once again gusts into the room.  The fire sputters in protest as the gathered Blades flinch, and Sotha turns to face the door, a rebuke pushing against her lips.  This is a _private_ meeting-

But the Redguard who pushed open the door is ashen with more than just the cold.

“Tenvi?” asks one of the other Blades, coming to his feet.  The Redguard’s breath is a cloud as she speaks.

“Thalmor.  On the road up from Bruma.  A raiding party.”

 

The next few minutes are a flurry of cold, of panic, of cloaks over shoulders and Akaviri katanas loosened in their sheaths.  Sotha pays attention to very little of it. Her five fall in around her as she pushes through the other Blades, stopping only for a breath to jam her helmet onto her head and her cloak over her shoulders before stepping out into the cold.

It hits with a vengeance.  The air itself seems to have teeth, scraping her lungs, nipping her nose.  Sotha reaches to the blade at her side and runs her fingers across the embossed wolf’s head as she strides across the Dwemer balcony to look over the high wall.

There.

Just as Tenvi said, a party of Thalmor rides up the road.  Cold winter sunlight glints from blades and armor. The black robes of the Justicars, spots of darkness in the glittering mass of enemy party, seem all the more forbidding for their golden surroundings.

“The terms-?”  Claudia, to Sotha’s left, struggles for words.  “They aren’t supposed to be at war with us anymore!”

“Hmm.”  Andalmo is squinting.  He makes a noise of frustration and passes a hand over his face, then, eyes glowing almost pink, leans forward again.

“Perhaps they need help,” says Miralnu, on Andalmo’s other side.

Andalmo points.  Sotha, shielding her eyes against the sunlight’s glare, sees a limp gold-skinned figure draped over the withers of a horse in front.

“They’re injured,” says Miralnu.

Sotha glances over.  Miralnu, she notices, isn’t going for her weapons - though Miralnu’s weapons tend to be of the atronach-and-dremora variety.  She returns her gaze to the Thalmor. They’re too far away to see any faces, but there aren’t any obvious drawn weapons.

On the other hand, all their golden armor is pristine, all the warriors are on their own horses.  Sotha knows what a Thalmor battalion looks like after being routed. She’s harried and raided several defeated Thalmor groups.  These Altmer look very, very fresh.

Andalmo turns to look at Miralnu.  Sotha glances at them, debating if she should open the gates.  It would be a nice show of faith in their new allies, but allowing anyone into a Blade stronghold doesn’t sound wise.  Certainly not “allies” of this persuasion.

The other Blades have gathered across the balcony now, waiting.  The two trainees keep looking to their mentors. One has forgotten his cloak inside.

Andalmo places a hand on Miralnu’s shoulder.

“Dispel.”

And suddenly the Altmer standing there is not Miralnu, it is a golden-haired man, just as he snarls and lunges at Andalmo, a bound dagger flickering between his fingers.  He swipes. Andalmo darts back out of reach just as the Thalmor party comes upon the flat path, just as their leader grabs the familiar unconscious Altmer by the hair and holds her up.

“Blades!”

Andalmo steps close, his own Daedric knife in his hand.  A clash. He ducks down and surges up. The blade is buried in the imposter’s throat, Thalmor blood spattering now to the stone.  Andalmo catches the snarling corpse before it can fall.

“Your lives for this one!” shouts the leading Thalmor from below.

Liar.

Sotha meets Andalmo’s gaze, looks to the body in his arms, and gives a single nod.  Andalmo heaves it over the walls. The corpse tumbles to the ground with his dagger still embedded to the hilt.

“With me!” Sotha calls, and draws her sword.  Her five - her _four_ , now - unsheath their katanas in turn.  The shimmering sound of steel across leather behind her says the other Blades have drawn as well.

Below, Miralnu’s head rolls on the now-bloody snow.  The rest of her body is kicked limp to a snowbank.

“Forward!” calls the Thalmor commander.

Sotha ducks away from the walls.  She doesn’t need to see the force below to hear the hoofbeats, to know they only have a few minutes, and to know - with an utter, bitter certainty - that there is no defeating this.

“Get out.  Escape,” she orders as she approaches the other Blades.  There are twelve of them in total. “Use the back path into Skyrim, and hide.”

She meets all of their gazes in turn, and their protests with an immovable stare.

“We can hold them off,” rumbles Bira Gra’Mazdek, coming up behind Sotha.  Her breath stirs Sotha’s hair. “The entrance chamber is narrow.”

“And I can stand up top and pick off the mages,” volunteers Celyn.  Her thin lips are set in a furious straight line. Miralnu was her childhood friend.  “And call the horses to rebel. Or at least make them all expend magicka on wards and Command spells.”

Andalmo and Claudia flank Sotha.  They offer nothing but silent, stony support.  The backs of Andalmo’s gray fingers brush Sotha’s.

The other Blades glance at each other.  Sotha sees, in some of the younger faces, a guilty sort of relief.  The ends of the line begin to bow back, individual men and women beginning to retreat - only held in place by their comrades.  The middle of the line does not move. The middle is held by a Breton woman, one who Sotha knows by reputation if not by name.

“Delphine-” murmurs an older Nord man next to the Breton woman, glancing at her.  Delphine shakes him off.

“This isn’t a battle that’ll make a difference,” presses Sotha, now looking straight at Delphine.  The hoofbeats below are growing louder. “Andalmo, lower the storm gate.”

“Bira, help me out,” Andalmo says immediately.  Sotha keeps her eyes on Delphine even as those two disappear into the keep inside the mountain.  Gears click and shift, and then metal grinds on mountain. The old Dwemer gate lowers over the stone doors.

Tense silence.  Horses trumpet below.  Sotha crosses her arms, refusing to look away.

The gate slams down.

“Live,” Sotha says, “to fight another day.”

The hardness of Delphine’s gaze doesn’t change even as she takes a step back  And then another. The line bows around her.

“Fight well,” Delphine says.

Sotha lifts her chin, but doesn’t respond.  Delphine turns and disappears into the keep.  The other Blades follow in a trickle, then a wave, silent feet brushing across Dwemer-carved stone.  No one looks back.

Magic sparks and slams against the gate below.  Sotha spins to Celyn and Claudia. Andalmo has returned; Bira Gra’Mazdek has not.

“She’s downstairs,” Andalmo explains.  “With a battleaxe.”

The image of the Thalmor breaking through the Dwemer storm door only to be met by an angry Orisimer’s battleaxe is almost enough to make Sotha smile.  Almost.

“I’ll join her,” she says instead.  “Andalmo, Celyn, stay at the walls and force them to walk through Quagmire.  Claudia, be prepared with potions - and to switch out if anyone falls.”

Celyn, examining her bowstring, nods.  Andalmo touches the blade at his side. Claudia lets breath hiss through her teeth.

“How long do we need to hold?”

Sotha looks up at the sky.  It’s a pale, gorgeous blue. A nice sky to die under.

The Thalmor shout below - readying their assault on the mountain, on the fortress, on the metal door blocking their way.

Will her mother find out? she wonders suddenly.  What will the immortal Nerevarine do, discovering her only child dead at just sixty years of age?  

“As long as we can,” she answers Claudia.

The whole mountain shakes with the Thalmor’s assault.  Sotha goes to find a shield and Bira Gra’Mazdek.

 

They hold for as long as they can.

Noble thoughts of sacrifice and the other escaping Blades soon disappear in the face of this endless Thalmor onslaught.  The hewn entrance corridor, coupled with the shelter of the storm gate, forces the Thalmor to face them one or two at a time.  But they have numbers beyond that. Sotha does not.

Everything dissolves into a blur of swords clashing, of maces jarring against Sotha’s shield, of fire and ice and poison when Sotha gathers the will and the magicka to bring them into existence.  A wall of flame gives Bira Gra’Mazdek just enough of a breather to step back, allowing Sotha to take her place as the front line. Then, when Sotha can no longer keep the flame alive, the Thalmor come at her with golden swords and murder in their eyes.

A soldier comes; she bashes her shield in his face.

A soldier comes; she thrusts her katana deep and cuts into his knee.

A mage comes; lightning crackles down her blade, and the Thalmor’s limp body is flung back into the oncoming reinforcements.

They do not have much time to get beyond the whirling flash of her blade, to cut her down as she is cutting them.  But the sword grows ever heavier in her hand. Her shield arm feels numb and slow, even as she jerks it up to shelter from the blow of an axe.  Shock sizzles up to her shoulder. She falls back.

Andalmo is the one who steps forward to take her place, his blades coming in a cross to halt a blow meant for Sotha’s body.  He wields dual katanas with magic flashing down the blades - just as Sotha taught him. Just as her mother taught her. Dizzily, she realizes that magic has crackled around her for a while now.  Andalmo’s brand of magic is all illusion and swift death, smelling vaguely of the tea her mother used to brew when she was small and sick. Sotha struggles to her feet.

She is exhausted, she realizes, if she’s thinking like this during the heat of battle.

Claudia stands at the end of the tunnel with healing potions.  Sotha stumbles to her, downs one, takes the other two, and directs the young human to go play backup.

Then she forces herself up the stairs.

Upstairs is not good.  Sotha finds and slams a potion of stamina in the keep, a small green bottle which leaves her tasting swamp muck and feeling ill.  It gives her enough strength to feel her wounds - progress, yes, but in the wrong direction. Her left shoulder feels almost dislocated.  She gives it a few good circles, carefully lets the battered shield drop to the floor, and is about to swear when she comes onto the high balcony.

Bira Gra’Mazdek crouches against the wall, dipping arrow tips into a vial of poison.  She hands each prepared arrow to Celyn, who nocks, draws, aims, and releases in mere moments.  Her draw arm is trembling with exhaustion. Sotha wishes she hadn’t slammed that stamina potion.

She bites back her curse and goes to Celyn’s side.  The force below doesn’t seem to have abated at all. She could have sworn she killed more, she injured more, even when she was down below holding them off-

But it doesn’t matter.  Sotha draws in cold air and dredges up magicka from the hollow, aching pit in her chest.  Have the other Blades escaped by now? Are they safe in Skyrim? Sotha doubts they will ever be safe - doubts any Blade will be free from the Thalmor’s reach, ever again.

Were the Thalmor pouring past the storm door with this much killing fury when Sotha was down there?

She flings out a net of magicka, and lightning strikes down into a cluster of armored Thalmor.  Horses rear and shy as the soldiers scream. Celyn snatches three arrows from Bira Gra’Mazdek, seizing her chance, and shoots them all in rapid succession.  Each finds its mark - a throat, a horse’s withers, a hip - sowing even more chaos.

A black-robed justiciar looks up, her lips moving.  Green energy crackles and soars from her hand. Sotha drops beneath the wall, pulling Celyn down with her, letting the bolt of magicka pass over their heads and slam into the mountain behind them.  Sotha glances back over her shoulder to see a green film shimmering over the rock.

Paralyze, she recognizes.

Why paralyze?  Why not kill? Beheading is more the Thalmor style of dealing with errant Blade agents.

“I’m going back down,” grunts Bira Gra’Mazdek, poisoning the last arrow before shattering the empty vial and hefting her battleaxe once more.

“Talos guide you,” says Sotha automatically.  Bira laughs.

“He better.”

She passes Andalmo on her way inside.  Andalmo is clutching his ribs, blood seeping from between gray fingers.  Sotha grimaces at him.

“Where’s your swords?”

“Shattered,” says Andalmo curtly.  He limps over and kneels next to her, keeping his head below the wall.  “They were pulling their blows for you.”

Sotha doesn’t like that idea.  It fits too neatly with the Paralyze spell.  Celyn glances over, rolling her shoulder and checking her bowstring for fault.

“Are you sure?”

Andalmo gives her a _look_ , and Sotha grimaces again.  He isn’t the type of elf to say something if he’s not sure about it.

But what could the Thalmor want by not killing her?

Sotha’s brain feels sluggish.  Her half-dislocated shoulder throbs with pain.  Andalmo’s crimson eyes, so different from the gold of her own, won’t release her.

Golden eyes…

Finally, Sotha makes the connection, a flash of inspiration and dread.

“Nerevarine velvyn,” she hisses.  Andalmo’s mouth tightens.

“Daughter of the Nerevarine,” he repeats.  Hearing it in Cyrodilic lends a sort of grim fatality to the phrase.  “Sotha, what would our Hortator do to save you?”

Sotha shakes her head, numb.   She has no idea. Below, Bira Gra’Mazdek roars in rage.

“Run,” Andalmo whispers.  “Just… go. We’ll hold them off.  Live to fight another day.”

Suddenly - ridiculously - Sotha wonders if Delphine and the other Blades have escaped.

“I can draw some away,” she murmurs, shaking her head.  “We left our mounts outside the walls-”

“Don’t fall into their hands.”

“I won’t.”

Below, a cry of victory.  Sotha spins and makes for the wall.

“Azura guide you,” Andalmo calls.

Sotha doesn’t respond.  She doesn’t trust her voice.

She steps up onto the parapet, judges the snow below-

and jumps.

Cold air whips her face, her hair, her armor, and then the snow crunches and envelops her in a shock of cold.  Sotha inhales wet. A cough tickles up in her throat, and she clamps her hand over her mouth, forcing down any sound.  Did the Thalmor hear? Was she seen, falling from the walls?

One second.  Two seconds. No shouting voices, nothing but cold starting to set into Sotha’s bones.  Sotha struggles up above the snow.

The Thalmor still throw themselves at the narrow entrance.  Now Sotha sees the _healers_ .  They’re in a hide created by rocks and sheltered by spells, skilled Altmer ensuring the warriors can fight on.   _That’s_ why their numbers seem endless.  If she could just take that out-

But she can’t.  It’s too risky, she tells herself, and turns away.

About fifty strides from the walls is the lean-to where they stabled their horses.  Four out of five have snapped their ropes and run away - the lead ropes dangle in the shed, and the snow still bears hoofprints.  Sotha swears under her breath.

It is _Andalmo_ ’s mount, not hers, that remains.

Andalmo’s horse is a skittish black.  He yanks his lead and stamps his feet, eyes rolling in his head.  Sotha’s shaking hands do precious little to soothe him, and she doesn’t waste much time trying before she fetches a pad and a saddle.  She has to actually pause and steady her grip before yanking the girth tight and tying it off. Then she unties the lead rope, clips reins to the bridle, and swings into the saddle, kicking Andalmo’s horse out into the snow and cold.

As she breaks the treeline, a cheer goes up from the gathered Thalmor.  The storm door is gone, and a hole in the mountainside glows hot with fresh-used magic.

Sotha grits her teeth.

“Hey!” she yells.  “Hey, you traitor-gold inbred ancestor-rejects!  Hey, you dipshit ancient bastard failures without living gods or living honor!”

Thalmor eyes bore into her.  Sotha lifts her chin higher, defiant, as the horse prances and shies beneath her.  The winter sun gets in her eyes; she hopes their golden color is glinting.

“You want the daughter of the Nerevarine?” she yells, and throws out her hands, jerking the horse’s head around.  Her bones ache as she draws on her near-spent well of magicka. “Come get her!”

And, fire.  A wall of flame roars up from the snow.  Andalmo’s horse rears, and Sotha grips tight with aching thighs, fighting to stay on even as he comes down  and leaps sideways, away from the roaring death.

The Thalmor, Sotha sees with an almost giddy relief, are coming after her.  And then it hits again as dread. _The Thalmor are coming after her._

Her horse shies a few more steps away.  The Thalmor have started to organize, mounted riders peeling off from the main group.  Warriors. Justiciars. Someone with a crest on his helm, who looks very important.

An arrow soars down, and then another, lodging in the important Thalmor’s horse.  The beast screams and bucks. Sotha backs away further into the trees in the confusion.

“Ancestors!”  Her voice breaks, hoarse from yelling, but she feels the cold, guiding power reach out.  “Guard me!”

The flames flare higher, gold and red and furious, and Sotha gives Andalmo’s horse free rein.

The Thalmor come after her.

 

Afterward, Sotha only remembers flashes and feelings.  The horse’s powerful muscles bunching and extending beneath her.  Pounding hoofbeats waning, dropping off, as her Blade-bred mount takes jumps and stays galloping without pause.  All is cold, mad panic.

Branches deposit snow upon her.  Her horse stumbles before a ravine, and Sotha prepares to jump from the saddle, but the horse recovers just in time to leap and to land and to continue.  She shivers, which is strange, because the horse’s sweat and heat rise up around her, and the ancestors (they’re still here?) drape a cloak of flame around her shoulders.

It is some unspecified, unquantifiable amount of time later, when Andalmo’s horse finally stumbles into a canter.  And then a trot. He refuses to be kicked back into a gallop. Sotha chances a glance over her shoulder. A Thalmor justiciar is coming up behind her, a spell building in his hand.

Sotha kicks free of her stirrups and flings herself from Andalmo’s horse.  The spell flies through the space she used to occupy. Her sword digs into her hip as she lands, heavy, in a soft snowbank.

At least she still has a sword.

Everything feels beaten and tender, as if she’s been slammed several times with a mace.  Her head throbs from snow glare. But Sotha still pushes herself back up, and with a shaking hand, she unsheaths her katan.

The Thalmor dismounts and does the same.  His horse stands with its head down, blowing heavily.  The Thalmor stalks forward.

Sotha wishes her arm wasn’t shaking quite so badly.

She wishes she had a shield.

The Thalmor comes for her, and there is no more time for wishing.

Circling overhand cut; Sotha whips her katana up and lets the blow bounce off.  The Thalmor puts that momentum behind a low strike. Sotha dodges back and lashes out with a return backhand.  The Thalmor deflects. Sotha’s sword nearly jumps from her grip; she grabs for it with her left hand, and it stabilizes.   _Shit._

The Thalmor steps left.  Sotha steps right. They circle in the snow.  Beneath his hood, his eyes gleam with a strange cruelty.

“Blade,” he hisses.  “Your conjurations cannot stop the Aldmeri Dominion.”

Conjurations?  Ancestors, he must mean.  Sotha finds the strength to laugh, though even that small motion hurts her abs.

“Angry that yours have forsaken you, lowborn?”

His mouth twists, and, too late, Sotha realizes angering him wasn’t smart.

Overhand.  Side cut, backhand.  A thrust where lightning sparks from his golden fingers.  Sotha feels the combat happening at a distance, keeping the strikes at bay with her blade and dodging the spells as best she can, but she has no input in the process. It happens on instinct and long training.

She was never the best at defence.  Her muscles strain with every movement, aching, warning.  She needs to finish this.

He drives a thrust forward.  Sotha tries to step out of the way, but her boot lands on a patch of ice, and she slips, stumbles, tries desperately to regain her footing while watching her opponent.

The setting sun gleams off his sword as it comes down.  Desperately, Sotha flings up her own blade. Shock runs down her arm.  The Thalmor’s sword bites deep into her blade’s edge and holds.

He tugs at it, his mouth curling in disgust.

Sotha throws herself forward.  Releasing her grip on her own sword, she draws up her magicka and forces her hands to his chest.

Her magicka takes its most natural form.

The force of the blast throws the Thalmor back, limp, sailing through the air until he hits a tree and crumples.  Flame licks at his robes still. Flame glows at the ends of his exposed, destroyed ribs. Flame burns shut the blood routes around the gaping hole in his chest.

Sotha has to steady herself on a tree.  The world tilts and bucks beneath her feet.  She staggers, snow rising to meet her, and suddenly she’s on her hands and knees, heaving.  There is nothing in her stomach. Blood dots the snow - from where? She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, and when she pulls it away, blood smears her gray skin.

Oh.

Sotha shuts her eyes and counts to ten.  The faces of her five flash in her mind. Miralnu - dead.  Andalmo - resolute. Celyn - exhausted. Claudia - shaking.  Bira Gra’Mazdek - enraged.

They are dead.  There is no way they survived.  She knows that, knew whoever stayed behind would die.  She has seen death before, in these long decades of being a Blade.

Perhaps later she will have time and room to hurt for them.  But for now, she forces her eyes open.

Twilight has gathered and multiplied the shadows.  The Thalmor’s body lies crumpled, and the snow steams around him.  The ground where they fought is trampled by steps, flattened, made dirty.  The Thalmor’s horse is gone; so is Andalmo’s. Sotha feels no desire to chase them down.

To the side, the trees thin for a path.  Sotha staggers to her feet. The snow is crusty here, old, and her boots crack through that crust with every wavering step.

Through blurring vision, she sees a familiar door.  A rocky hillside, and the door set back in it - and behind that door, stains on a stone floor, a place for children to scare each other…

Sotha pushes herself out of the trees.  The familiar walls and towers of her childhood home rise before her.  They’re taller than she remembers, taller and darker, but still-

She is running, stumbling, pushing.  The walls rear up before her. She puts a hand on one, and it is warm.  Her hand comes away black with soot.

With soot?

The tallness of the towers, she realizes, is not height.  It is smoke.

The portcullis is up.  Sotha stumbles beneath it, into the streets she remembers so sharply, and is met with smoking, despondent ruins.

“Miphlat Shelanu,” Sotha breathes.

Then her body gives out, and she crumples on scorched cobblestone.


End file.
